Articles

Magic & Memories: The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons - Part II

Mary Kirchoff, the VP of marketing, publishing, and tabletop games at Wizards of the Coast, talked about the explosive growth of TSR. "When I was there in 1977, Dungeons & Dragons was just a bunch of wargamers playing an evolved version of Chainmail. It took funding by the Blume family to turn a garden club newsletter into a real, thriving business." It worked. By 1982, TSR had 300 employees, a successful magazine, and book publishing arms that were pulling in fantastic sums of money. What it didn't have was an executive cadre with the business chops to channel that explosive growth into any kind of healthy, well-run company.

"When you have a tiger by the tail, it's kind of hard to be proactive," Kirchoff laughed. "Keep in mind that 1982, there was no such word as 'brand management.' The idea at the time was to break out into the mainstream, create an entertainment company, and try and become the next Disney." As a result of this strategy, TSR would entertain offers on the basis of revenue potential and tried to throw its licenses to anyone that would take them. There were Dungeons & Dragons beach balls, towels, toys, puzzles, and many other licensed items that made much less sense. At one point TSR actually acquired a company that printed needlepoint patterns.

The D&D gang prepare for a rumble with those Scooby Doo punks.

"OK, Which one of you meddling kids stole my other horn?"

That's not to say that everything the company did during that time was a boondoggle. Many of the things the company did worked, at least for a while. The growth of the D&D phenomena was so fast that any success made up for an inordinate amount of failures. Gary Gygax himself moved out to California to run a spin-off company called "Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment" that was supposed to work on creating D&D film and television properties. That paid off handsomely with a popular television cartoon that ran on the CBS network. Even today, Schuh acknowledges the positive legacy of that crazy time in brand awareness that Wizards of the Coast is still benefiting from. According to reports, Dungeons & Dragons still has a 75% brand awareness level among males 18-45.

Still, the difference between a fad that crashes and burns and a mature property that lasts comes from how the brand owners manage the transition from phenomenon to maturity. The faddish element of Dungeons & Dragons' popularity couldn't last, and by 1984 it was becoming increasingly obvious that the D&D vogue was over. Revenues were plateauing and the growth opportunities were no longer so easy to come by. As a result, TSR could no longer paper over the cracks in its organization with wads of money. "TSR grew too fast," Kirchoff said. "It branched out into too many areas and it didn't have people who could manage it properly.

"Too many people at TSR came in through the hobby -- friends of friends or family members. They knew D&D, but they didn't know business. The business people, on the other hand, who were supposed to be running the company, didn't know, or care to know, anything about the product we were supposed to be selling." Nowhere was that schism more apparent than that between Gary Gygax, the ultimate "product guy," and the Blume family, the people who were supposed to be running the business.